


Just Desserts

by blcwriter



Series: Pecan Pie 'Verse [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Imported, LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 11:02:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1223860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bones admits there's nothing wrong with people knowing he likes the sweet things in life.  So fluffy you'll need a dentist's appointment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Desserts

He's not annoyed that he hasn't seen Jim in days.  He's  _pissed_ .  It's totally different.

He looks for him in all the kid's usual hiding places-- the aftmost observation deck, more of a supply closet than anything-- the Captain's shuttle-- the small botany lab full of night-blooming flowers and a window onto the stars the whole length of the wall-- the gamma shift mess where Jim goes to finagle fresh fruit from the best pastry chef on the ship, a sassy grandma who loves Jim and who makes the kid cobbler while he sits on a bench in the corner and exchanges ship's gossip.  Hell, he even tracks down Cupcake on his rec shift, since sometimes he and Jim like to spar for old time's sake, even though they get along fine now that Cupcake is Security Chief Matthews and the two of them bonded while they fought their way out of that hellhole on Rupa V.  But Jim's nowhere to be found, and somehow it would be beneath Bones to actually ask the computer to tell him where Jim is or send him an email or call him on his comm-- it would be cheating or something, like Jim would never just order Romelle to make him a cobbler.  No-- if Jim can't charm something out of someone, he wants nothing to do with it.  Right now, Bones knows he's got to do this face to face, all or nothing.  

He's already tracked down Gaila and asked her where Jim is, but the Orion just shakes her head and tells Bones she doesn't know.  He knows she's telling the truth-- besides Bones, she's probably Jim's oldest and closest friend on the ship, former fuck-buddy status notwithstanding, so she wouldn't lie to Bones where Jim was involved.  But she doesn't know, and a quick consult with Scotty at her suggestion turns up no new information, just a quizzical and somewhat concerned look from the Engineer, like he's worried that Bones and Jim aren't on terms, which they're not.  It gives him a bit of pause as he keeps up his search-- of course, Jim  _would_ get buddy-buddy with the weird Scot, he loved the ship with the same freakish passion as Jim, something that made Bones glad that unlike those old pulpy sci-fiction novels, ships can't be personified, because Bones would never see Jim again, he'd been too busy fucking his ship and the ship would fuck him right back, because the ship isn't supposed to hold like it does under stress, but Jim gives an order and damnit if the ship doesn't always perform anyway just because the Captain has said so.  Anyway.  He's pissed that Jim is avoiding him, though he's pissed at himself and not Jim, since it's his fault that the kid's pouting like the infant he so rarely is these days.

Not that Jim's really pouting.  Or being an infant.  No, he's right to be angry and the longer he avoids Bones the more Bones comes around to Jim's way of thinking-- he's been too much of an old stubborn bastard-- no matter if Jim says thirty three is not old, McCoy sure as hell feels like it-- and now he's pissed because while he hadn't quite thought Jim was joking, he didn't think he was serious either.  The fact that he's exempted himself from Bones' presence seems to be proof he'd meant what he'd said.

After the fourth night in a row looking for Jim ends up with Bones back at his quarters, alone again--  _empty room, empty bed, empty heart--_ he slumps back on the bed and turns over the thought,  _what the fuck next?_ If he goes to Jim's quarters Jim won't let him in-- assuming he's even there, of course.  His peripatetic, insomniac Captain could be just about anywhere-- the man never sleeps more than five hours at a go and he's been that way the whole time Bones has known him.  And again, even assuming Jim was in his rooms, using the CMO override as an entree to make his apology also smacks of an improper shortcut.

He eventually makes his way back to gamma mess because now Jim's buzzing energy is under his skin and he can't sleep for all the options playing out in his head.  He grabs an herb tea, one of Romelle's corn bread squares and more butter than a CMO should ever be caught eating in public and sits in a corner with a PADD.  He might as well do some paperwork, and a grim smile twists his mouth because this is something Jim does, too, when bad dreams drive him from bed no matter how old he is and how generally secure he feels about most things now that he's been Captain almost two years.  

"Most efficient Captain in Starfleet," he'd said when Bones had tracked him here once at two o'clock in the morning, tapping a few buttons and adding the PADD he'd been reading to the endless stack of Captain's-eyes-only reports and locked datapads that were Jim's special hell.  

The heavenly waft of fresh pecan pie assaults his nose then.  Looking up, he sees Romelle setting down a plate with a huge wedge between them, the plate bearing two forks and an enormous scoop of vanilla ice cream melting in the still-hot-pie's proximity.

"Need a taste test, if you don't mind," she says, soft wrinkled caramel skin highlighting spakling celadon-green eyes and snowy-white curls, a picture perfect and near-sepia grandma in the two-thirds light most common at gamma shift.

"Twist my arm," Bones replies, gladly setting his work aside to pick up a fork.

"Supply ordered the wrong kind of sweetener and I ended up with a case of British golden syrup instead of corn sugar," the woman says acidly, her Savannah lilt now cutting, "so I had to tweak my usual recipe to see if I can still make it worth eating.  Need a real southern boy to tell me if it's worth serving."

Bones is too busy shoving the fourth forkful down his gullet to answer, but he figures his blissful rolled eyes and " _mmmmpph_ " might tell the woman that the pie is as perfect as always, even if it is a little bit different.

"Well, if you approve," she says after a bite of her own and a thoughtful moment or two spent contemplating her creation, jaw working and eyes closed.  

"I do," Bones finally manages, then spears up a fifth bit and shoves it into his mouth.  It was rare to get hot pecan pie out of the oven, and while most folks preferred it room temperature or even cold, there was nothing like the perfume of the sugar and the soft bend and crunch of the nuts while the hot custard melted full on your tongue, at least where Bones was concerned.

He can't help but close his eyes in pleasure at the taste of the pie, the way it's so damned unhealthy and yet it's just about his favorite thing to eat in the world.  It's amazing how something simple like his favorite dessert makes the vastness of space and the dangers they face every day almost bearable, though he doesn't go searching it out every time he's in the mess or beg the chef to make him some whenever he's feeling a little bit worn.  No, he lets it be a consolation and perfect surprise when there is some, when Romelle's turned her attention away from mixed berry cobblers (Jim's favorite) or cherries jubilee (Spock's, and yes, he's still surprised by it, somehow) or sweet potato pie (Uhura's) or any one of the officers' favorites and back to McCoy's.  It's better not to expect it and then be surprised rather than let down because he knows it's on the menu and he missed the last piece.

"I could eat this pie every day," he says when the plate's empty and he's chased all the crumbs with his fork and then thought long and hard about damning table manners and picking the plate up so he can lick off the last bits of hot custard and melted ice cream.

"Well, then, I'll make sure to make one and save you a piece," the purveyoress of temptation says with a grin-- she's wicked, Romelle is, and Bones knows that before she goes back to the kitchen, she's going to worm what he saw Chapel and M'Benga doing in the dispensary out of him, not that he isn't dying to tell-- but she's unrepentant and thinks the problems of the world can be solved if everyone just has dessert.  

"Oh, I could but I can't," he says.  He just can't.  He wouldn't ever get sick of it-- he  _knows_ that he wouldn't, knows like he knows he's a doctor, but still.  He can't.

The pastry chef cocks her head at him and  _tsks_ just like his Gram did when she though he was being pig-stubborn. "I don't see why.  You're a grown man, there's no point in denying yourself something you love, or in asking for it if you love it that much.  Are you afraid people will learn that you light up like a kid at a fair when there's fresh pecan pie?  That you're not such a grouch that you can't like the sweet things in life?  There's nothing wrong with people knowing you enjoy something, and it's not like you're going to hog the whole pie for yourself all the time-- you're a good man, you know how to share."

She's waiting for an answer, and Bones suddenly realizes this is a two-layered conversation, whether Romelle knows it or not.   

"I don't want to share," he says guiltily, and doesn't stop himself from swiping up some of the ice cream with his finger and sucking it off-- it's too good not to enjoy every last bit of it.

"Leonard," she chides, even as she's smiling at him while he's still sucking his finger.  She and Uhura are the only ones on this bucket of bolts he'll let call him Leonard, and he wouldn't even let Uhura get away with it except she lets him call her Nyota and it's too much temptation to say no to, since it pisses Jim off so much-- and Romelle's got the authority invested in calling someone their full name down that Uhura won't have for years-- decades, really.  He listens.

"You limit yourself to one piece of pie every single time it's been on offer, I've seen it," she says sternly.  "You always leave enough for the rest of the crew.  There's no reason not to believe you couldn't keep on doing that even if you had some every day.  And don't tell me you'd get fat, you work too hard for that."  There's a glint in her eyes and a smirk edging her more grandmotherly smile, and well, yes, she probably knows the two levels this conversation is happening on.  Not that it matters, it's still good advice.

She gives even more advice then, leaning in, that smirk turning wicked and the gleam in her eyes so bright she's a rival for Jim at his most mischievous.  "And think about it, Leonard.  What if you passed up the chance to have pie every day and then one day you woke up and there wasn't going to be any more, ever?  What a damned waste that would be."  She pauses to let that thought sink in before leaning in further and whispering--  pure effect, they're all alone in the mess _,_ the woman's a menace _\--_ and says, "Besides, it's not the secret you think it is.  The whole crew already knows you're better at loving pecan pie than anyone else on this ship-- no one's going to steal the last slice from you."

"They're not, are they?" he manages around the hard lump in his throat and the burning fire in his chest and the flop in his stomach and the churn in his guts-- _somatizing this much, Bones, because yes, he's internalized  Jim's name for him, too--_ and the damned woman laughs as she stands up and holds the plate out to Leonard.  "Go on, I won't tell anyone that Dr. Leonard McCoy is a plate-licker."

He throws inhibition out the metaphorical window and does what the good woman suggests, then hands it back, clean, with a grin.  She's already collected his empty teacup and plate. 

"Go on, get," she says with a smile, then heads back to her kitchen, where a timer's just started going off, some other pastry concoction, no doubt.  He pities the next person who wanders into Romelle's kitchen and isn't ready for whatever realization she forces on them.  He makes a mental note to thank Jim for hiring her away from their favorite Academy mess hall.  

\--

He sleeps well after the pie and the pep talk and gets a good four hours under his belt before waking.  He's not on until beta, and he's got three hours until then, but now he has a plan, one almost-- no, more-- as decisive as anything Jim would have ever come up with.

He showers and shaves--  _twenty third century and they still haven't made a damned beard suppressor that can keep up with his stubble--_ and gets dressed, then has a quick bagel and cream cheese and lox with some coffee from his in-suite replicator. 

When he strides onto the bridge, he's whistling and grinning, something that sends Spock's eyebrows shooting into his forehead and leads Uhura to frown, like she's worried that Bones has gone space-mad and is about to murder them all.  Does he really not smile that much around them?

Jim looks at him evenly, no expression betrayed in his face or his voice as he says "Doctor," a warning sign if ever there was one, because Jim never calls him by his title, but Bones doesn't care.  Bones rounds the Captain's chair and stands directly in front of him before leaning in and planting his hands on the arms of the chair, getting right in Jim's face.

"Yes," he says, loudly and clearly over the blips and buzzes and subdued voices that make up the noise on the bridge, that and the ever-present hum of the ship under their feet, that faint vibration he'd missed until Jim pointed it out to him, even making Bones take his boots and socks off so he could soak it in better one delta shift when they'd been alone up here.  Jim's always done that since he's met him-- pointed out things Bones would have missed, otherwise.

Jim tips his head, bright blue eyes piercing, attentive, but says nothing as he just looks at McCoy for long moments like he's staring into McCoy's soul instead of just looking him right in the eye.  Hell, maybe he is-- Jim's pretty much proven impossible is a concept that doesn't apply to him, so maybe all those long azure stares have been Jim rooting around in Bones' heart and learning things Bones can't yet admit.  Or hadn't been until he'd had some illumination in the form of fresh pecan pie after ship's midnight, borne by a she-devil pastry chef angel.

"Yes, Jim," he repeats, because it bears repeating and now that he's made up his mind, he'll repeat it forever-- he's about to say it a third time when Jim's flat-lined mouth turns into a grin, one that gets wider and wider until Bones is blinded by white teeth and sparkling blue eyes and Jim's raspy chuckle.  They're both laughing then, and Bones leans in and seals his lips over Jim's, kissing him deeply like only someone who's been stupid and who's stupid in love can when they've been apart for five days and four interminable nights.  He licks his way into Jim's mouth as Jim's tongue tangles with his, lips pressing and heads tilting until they achieve that best, deepest angle, the one that's just right for tasting the only thing Bones likes more than pecan pie. 

Of course the crew already knew they were together-- discretion aside, the ship is like high school and a thousand people is a very small group when you're together for five years-- and yes, it was stupid of Bones to insist all this time that they not act like a couple in public, especially since he's Jim's next of kin and Jim's his, something that came out when they'd gotten kidnapped by those goddamned lizard men and Spock had ended up having to figure out who to patch up first when the two of them were too messed up from the torture to answer intelligibly-- and of course they've been together for almost two years, and of course he loves Jim, he's known it since he snuck him onto the ship back before Vulcan, there was no way he could leave him behind-- but the habits of being cranky and private and pretending like he didn't love Jim more than he'd ever loved anything else because the thought of not having Jim to love at all was too much to bear-- those thoughts were tired even before Jim gave his ultimatum five days ago when Bones was sneaking out of his quarters before alpha shift, his "Marry me, Bones, or we'd better go back to just friends because this sneaking around shit hurts too goddamned much," knocking Bones on his denial-ridden ass.  He'd left without answering and Jim had been avoiding him since.  Not that Bones blamed him.

"Okay?" he asks when they parted for air, then chuckled himself, because at some point during the kiss he's clambered up onto the chair and is straddling Jim as he holds the Captain's face in his hands.

"Yes, um, yeah.  Um.  Yeah.  It's all good," Jim says, grin totally dazed, and Bones smirks with pride that he put it there in the middle of alpha shift in front of the senior bridge officers.

"Good," he replies, regaining his feet with all the dignity that he's allowed as the ship's CMO, the one who's just finished making out with the Captain in his own chair and reducing him to a grinning, gibbering mess. 

"Good," he says again, then leans in a gives Jim a softer, less tonsil-examining kiss, before backing off and winking at Spock.  "You should confer with the Captain, Commander," he says, snorting as the hobgoblin's eyebrows try to rocket off of his face.  "We'll need to arrange for a ship's retrofit while the Captain and I are on our honeymoon."

"Bones?"  Jim's voice calls after him as he stands in the 'lift, waiting for the doors to close and take him back to the medical deck.  His bright boy's swiveled around in his chair, and the brilliant smile on his face makes Bones' somatized organs all start flopping and burning and lumping and churning again.

"Yeah?" he asks, holding the doors open a second.

"What changed your mind?"

The answer is both simple and vague, but somehow he thinks Jim will get it.  "I'm tired of not licking my plate clean."

Jim throws his head back and laughs, the warm sound of it sweet, filling and rich like, well, like Romelle's pecan pie. 

"I kind of wondered why Romelle was making pecan pie when I left the kitchen last night," he says, shaking his head, then gets up and scampers into the lift like a kitten chasing a large ball of yarn, calling that Spock has the conn over his shoulder as the doors close behind them.

"She sent one to my quarters this morning, you know," Jim rasps in his ear while McCoy busies himself with licking Jim's jaw.  "Said I should give it to you at lunch time, no questions asked.  I was going to come by Sickbay with it later."

"We've been finessed by a pastry chef?"  he murmurs into the warm skin of Jim's neck, that vital pulse beating under his tongue.

When the lift opens, Jim grabs him by the wrist and tugs him off toward his quarters, eyes sparkling even brighter, if possible.  "Quit complaining or I won't let you have the ice cream she sent with it, much less serve it on this special platter I like to call James Tiberius Kirk's incredible abs."

If the five crew members they passed wanted to know why Bones hoisted Jim over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and sprinted off towards Jim's quarters, they'd have to wait for an answer.  Bones had dessert to attend to.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the [recipe](http://nymag.com/listings/recipe/pecan-pie-with-whipped-c/).  I use ~~drink excessive amounts of~~ Wild Turkey 80 proof bourbon.  Please don't use blackstrap molasses, and by all means, please use salted butter in the pie and in [this pate brisee recipe](http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/07/unbendy-brisee/), even though Deb says to use unsalted.  The salt contrasts with the nuts and the sugar in a totally omnomnomnom kind of way.
> 
> And yes, Romelle's real.  She ran the kitchen in my dorm during college, though she was an all-around cook, not just a pastry chef.  I learned more from her than from class.


End file.
